Marcus Aurelius Quotes

You can never control other people. You can only control yourself. I have definitely learned that.

You cannot lead others until you have first learned to lead yourself.

Preach in your own house and to your own company

That is life: you have to deal with things, and it's up to you how you deal with things. That's what makes you mature or not. If you can get the best out of yourself, that's all that matters. If you do that, nobody is arguing.

For self is the lord of self, self is the refuge of self; therefore curb thyself as the merchant curbs a good horse.

In the end, it's a mental maturity to let your best come out.

I can't judge the way other people behave. I can only look at myself.

The biggest obstacle to people becoming better is that you have to really want to be a good person in order to be a better person, and most people would rather be other things.

Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.

No one can be great, or good, or happy except through the inward efforts of themselves.

You're always concerned for your character. You should be.

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

Respect for self is the beginning of cultivating virtue in men and women.

Every day, we have to strive to be better people. Some days we give in to weakness, and sometimes we give in to strength.

When you locate good in yourself, approve of it with determination. When you locate evil in yourself, despise it as something detestable.

I can't worry about external factors, I have to focus on myself.

We can’t change the world. The only thing we can change is ourselves, by trying to get a better understanding of our own messed-up wiring.

It is not what talents or genius a man has, but how he is to his talents, that constitutes friendship and character. The man thatstands by himself, the universe stands by him also.

If thou wouldst be implacable, be so with thyself.

The first lesson of life is to burn our own smoke; that is, not to inflict on outsiders our personal sorrows and petty morbidness, not to keep thinking of ourselves as exceptional cases.

I made my share of mistakes. People can look at that as what not to do, and if they choose to make fun of it, that's fine. I can't control that. All I know is that I can control myself. And at that point in my life, I wasn't even able to do that.

Fight against yourself, recover yourself to decency, to modesty, to freedom. And, in the first place, condemn your actions; but when you have condemned them, do not despair of yourself. For both ruin and recovery are from within.

Self-respect leads to self-discipline.

How ridiculous not to flee from one's own wickedness, which is possible, yet endeavor to flee from another's which is not.

Each day look into your conscience and amend your faults; if you fail in this duty you will be untrue to the Knowledge and Reason that are within you. Keep a watchful eye over yourself as if you were your own enemy; for you cannot learn to govern yourself, unless you first learn to govern your own passions and obey the dictates of your conscience.